Claiming to have reached “an inflection point”, Waymo’s chief executive John Krafcik told reporters at a San Francisco press conference that the company was “close to bringing this [technology] to a lot of people.”

Krafcik said: “It’s an indication of the maturity of our technology. We can imagine our self-driving tech being used in all sorts of areas.”

However, Krafcik emphasised that Waymo was focused on producing the technology rather than the vehicles themselves, deploying modified Lexus SUVs in addition to its own prototypes.

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